Although for IT executives in capital markets, wealth management and corporate banking, a cybersecurity strategy is a top priority, budget cuts and staff shortages make implementing cybersecurity strategies difficult, according to a survey for a financial services IT consultancy, Excelian, Luxoft Financial Services. More than half, 55pc of respondents cite a lack of IT investment as a significant source of stress in their role, rising to 63pc of those surveyed in the UK alone. However, those in Switzerland and Austria are less concerned about budget cuts, with only 40pc and 43pc of IT people expressing frustrations, respectively.
IT executives also feel they don’t have access to the right talent and are not fully trained – 54pc say they are frustrated by a lack of training and learning opportunities, while 26pc are also kept awake by a skills shortage in their IT department. As a result, 36pc of IT people working in the financial services sector are reluctant to recommend increasing cybersecurity spend.
Marcin Swiety, Global Head of Luxoft’s Information Security practice, says: “IT departments in banks are being pulled in two directions. Banks want to focus on digital innovation, but IT professionals feel unable to escape from the ever-present cyber threat. Budget cuts are leaving smaller teams with fewer spare hours in the day. Unable to plan ahead, they spend their days firefighting problems and upgrading legacy systems.”
European IT managers working in financial institutions on the buy-side and sell-side also believe that insufficient cybersecurity strategies plus reacting to other daily struggles is preoccupying too much of their time. On average, IT executives say more than half of a CIO’s role is responding to events as they happen, whereas only 40% of their role is proactive.
The complexity of internal technology systems at larger and more established institutions in particular also forces those CIOs to have less time to implement change. About a quarter, 28pc of IT executives say that the complicated internal processes make it more difficult to implement cybersecurity strategies.
Swiety adds: “Most financial institutions want to capitalise on technologies like blockchain, AI and the cloud, but they are difficult to implement both securely and at pace. If we want to see digital transformations that are truly protected from the cyber threat, then institutions must find a way for IT departments to free up their time.”
About the survey
Excelian, Luxoft Financial Services interviewed IT people in major financial services firms across Europe and surveyed 202 IT decision makers in capital markets, wealth management and corporate banking in companies with over 500 employees: 102 in the UK; 50 in Germany; 30 in Switzerland and 20 in Austria.
